Never before have there been so many Republican presidential candidate debates, which, in turn, has given the campaign the feel of not so much an important political event but rather a reality TV show. Which contestant will flub tonight? And as with Cameron and Seurat's painted child, the more the electorate looks at these candidates, the more it becomes clear that nothing is there.

What all this means is that the coverage of the election has, in the main, been about what Joan Didion disparagingly referred to as "the process": the industry fluff around it, with the media and politicians acting like squabbling toddlers. This relationship was epitomised by Bachmann's team making the announcement on Sunday, with gleeful, righteous anger, that they had proof that she wasn't given due attention in the debate. What this has to do with the average American's wellbeing, Lord knows, but it was picked over by the self-reflective media.

A more revealing look at the state America is currently in, and what it really needs from this election, is not on TV or in the American press. It is at the cinema. Two new documentary films are both brilliant in themselves but especially so at capturing what this election is about. So if you really want to know the state America is in, turn away from NBC and Fox and look towards a 69-year-old German and a red Muppet.

Into the Abyss, Werner Herzog's documentary about the death penalty, and Being Elmo, about the man whose hand and voice have created one of Sesame Street's best beloved characters, both recently opened in the US. The former is about the death of the American dream for society and the latter is about the triumph of it in the case of the rare individual and, thus, they make for an illuminating if unlikely double bill.

Into the Abyss is Herzog's most human film since Grizzly Man as it focuses more on people than physical endurance or achievement, while framing them in a devastating context. Herzog ostensibly details a terrible crime that resulted in one of the perpetrators, Michael Perry, being condemned to death. But he also shows a whole community – in this case, the town of Conroe, Texas – and, through it, the failure of the American penal system and the near-impossibility of escaping poverty in the US when one has been born into it, as well as the self-defeating savagery of capital punishment. Incidentally, GOP candidate Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, has overseen more executions than any governor in modern history, with 234 under his belt. When asked about it in one of the debates he said simply: "I've never struggled with that at all."

Being Elmo, by contrast, tells the story of Kevin Clash, who was himself born into relative poverty, but, thanks to talent, social and familial encouragement and some happy luck, fulfilled his dream of working on Sesame Street and was financially compensated. The contrasting shots of his childhood home in Baltimore and his sunny townhouse today are the American dream, in real estate terms.

Yet as wonderful as Being Elmo is, this American tale is the exception; the story of Michael Perry and Conroe, Texas, smacks painfully of being the rule and feels far more representative of America today, not least because Clash broke through more than 30 years ago; the story of Perry is from this decade. To watch these two movies together is to watch the progressive death of the American dream, and to see it become a crippling lie. If you knew you were in trouble when you started to miss John McCain, you know a country is in real dire straits when it's not the politicians who reflect it – it's Werner Herzog.

Reasons for turning a blind eye

Sometimes cliches are the only way to grasp inexplicable horror. Thus, it's not surprising that, in the wake of the Penn State scandal, in which the university is accused of turning a blind eye to its former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky's alleged sexual assaults on children over the years, some have seized on a cliche. Perhaps the most shocking detail of this horrific story is the evidence that in 2002 graduate assistant coach Mike McQueary claims he witnessed Sandusky raping a 10-year-old boy in the shower and did, basically, nothing. Instead, he told his father, and he told an authority (the next day), but he neither intervened nor called the police.

Commentators have quickly invoked the Bystander Effect, in which witnesses to a crime do nothing, such as when two-year-old Wang Yue was hit by a truck and ignored by pedestrians last month in China. Shock may have played a part in McQueary's behaviour but the most likely explanation for Sandusky's alleged crimes being reportedly ignored not just by McQueary but Penn State would be money. University sports teams in America are huge business. Penn State makes $70m (£40m) a year from its football programme and Sandusky was seen as an invaluable part of that. This has nothing to do with complex psychological reactions; it has everything to do with cash.